of the night. Seelie frowned at her shadow in the window glass.
But Patty said Patience was never a member of the coven. She could have been wrong—she said herself that she was working from partial records and not everything was saved—but…
But she wasn’t wrong. Seelie’s gut told her so. Dieter Rime’s first kill on American soil was a teenage girl who had nothing to do with the Sisterhood of New Amsterdam, and he knew it. So why did he murder her?
She needed to know. Aislin had given her a way to find out. The squalid slum of Holy Ground had burned to ash, been paved over and rebuilt centuries ago. The brothels and gin houses became banks and brokerages, but the residue of old dreams clung to the city like dust. The answers were somewhere north of Trinity, in the shadow of the churchyard.
Seelie got off the bus at a quiet stop in the Financial District. Towers of dark glass loomed over her, titanic and cold. Down the block, a wine bar was closing up, kicking the last few stragglers out as the cherry neon died. A drunk wearing his silk tie as a scarf had to cling to his buddy just to stay on his feet. He’s going to have a bad morning, she thought.
Then an idea hit her. Altered states. He’s not awake and he’s not asleep. Exactly where I need to be to use the spell of bridging.
But even if she could find an open bar at this hour, she was obviously too young to drink. Nobody would serve her. She thought about Patty and the magic that had sent her spirit to Hades; that ointment Patty rubbed into her skin had done something to make her feel tingly and light-headed.
And by the time I get to Staten Island and back, it’ll be sunrise, she thought. The city never sleeps, but this is as close as it gets. It’s now or never.
At the end of a row of quiet storefronts, their windows like walls of onyx, a single bright light drew her eye. A Duane Reade drugstore, open until two a.m. Seelie checked the time. She had five minutes. Inspiration sparking, she hustled across the street.
One of the employees was on her trail the second she walked in the door. She didn’t blame him; beyond being eager to close up and go home, he probably thought she was looking to steal something. She caught her reflection in a mirrored pillar: tangled hair, blistered and rust-red hands, her clothing streaked with black dirt. She looked like she’d crawled out of the nearest dumpster. Or the nearest open grave.
“Help you find something?” he said, inviting her to notice him.
“Yes, please.”
She led him down the cold medicine aisle and pointed to the cough syrup.
“What’s the strongest brand you’ve got?”
He considered her, then the stout plastic bottles, finger tapping his chin like he was a sommelier pondering a selection of fine wine.
“Purple stuff on the end,” he said. “I took that last time I had a cold, woke up on my kitchen floor twelve hours later.”
“Perfect.” She snatched the bottle. Then she paused and gestured to her throat. “I’ve, uh, got a little tickle.”
“Sure,” he said.
She paid cash. She didn’t need a bag.
Seelie carried her prize to the corner of Broadway and Wall Street. Even at two in the morning, the boulevard still bustled. Cabs prowled past, hunting for late-night fares, while delivery trucks prepared the crossroads of America to face another morning. Trinity Church stood at the intersection, a Gothic cathedral at the nexus of financial power. Trinity marked the southern border of Holy Ground, rebuilt after the Great Fire.
The fire that devoured the bordello district, right after Leda Swan—Arachne, she reminded herself—came to New York. Patience, the fire, the witch hunt. It was all connected.
She stared down at the purple bottle and ripped the plastic seal from the cap. Probably not standard magical procedure, she thought. But Aislin had told her the score: witchcraft was spit and piss and blood and black iron nails. And cough syrup, if it came down to it. Witches used what worked. Seelie lifted the bottle to the church’s spires, offering a salute.
“Cheers,” she said. Then she held her nose and chugged it down. The thick purple goop tasted like sour black licorice mixed with toothpaste. Her throat convulsed, rebelling, and her stomach shuddered. Her body was trying to throw it back up while she was still forcing it down, gulp after gulp, tasting